The surprising realites of mythical creatures

While sailing the ocean near Haiti, Christopher Columbus in 1493 reported seeing three mermaids from a distance. The Genoese explorer was not impressed.Up close, the sea maidens were "not as pretty as they are depicted," he wrote in his journal, "for somehow in the face they look like men."Many scientists now think that what Columbus probably saw was a manatee, an aquatic mammal that resembles a flippered hippo.In a new exhibition opening at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) here this weekend, viewers can digitally superimpose the picture of a mermaid atop that of a manatee and see how Columbus and countless other sailors might have been fooled.Entitled Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns & Mermaids, the exhibition traces the possible origins of some of the world's most famous "imaginary" beasts and also their lesser-known counterparts. "This museum has a long history of studying and presenting great stories about the natural world and the culture of humanity," said AMNH president Ellen Futter at a press preview of the exhibition earlier this week. "In this exhibition, we extend that tradition further, by looking at the intersection of nature and culture, those moments when people glimpse something fantastical in nature."

The exhibition deftly combines nature and myth, paleontology and anthropology, and delightfully campy models of mythical creatures with real fossils. Upon first entering the exhibition, visitors are greeted by a 17-foot-long, green, European dragon of the sort that legend says Saint George slew. Its sinuous and colorful Chinese counterpart hangs from the ceiling in one of the last rooms of the exhibition. In the mythical water-creatures section, large tentacles and the head of a giant squid-inspired kraken rise from the floor, its body mostly hidden.Mythic Creatures borrows specimens and artifacts from the fossil, art and anthropological collections of the AMNH and other museums, and examines how such objects might have-through imagination, misidentification, speculation or outright deception-given birth to fantastical creatures.